The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-08-04

Condensation Demanded by the Age. Tho
Coming Discourse VIII Abound in In
stances of VicariOus Suffering Taken
from Everyday Life.
The HANTPToNs, July 24-The Rev.
7. De Witt Talmage's subject this
morning was: preaching, Teaching,
and EXhoration, and his text: Romans
xii, 7, s.: cor ministry, let us wait on
our ministeling; or he that teacheth,
on teaching Or he that exhorteth, on
exhOrtation.
Before the world is converted the
style of religious discourse will have to
be converted. You might as we'll go
into the modern Sedan or Gettysburg
with bows and arrows instead of rifles
and bombshells and parks of artillery,
as to expect to conquer this world for
God by the old styles of exhortation
and sermonology. Jonathan Edwards
preached the sermons most adapted to
the age in which he lived, but if those
sermons We're preached now they would
divide an audience into two classes,
those sound asleep and those wanting
to go home.
But there is religious discourse of
the future-who will preach it 1 have
no idea, in what part of the earth it will
be born 1 have no idea, in which de-
nomination of Christians it will be
delivered I cannot guess. That dis
course or eXhortation may be born in
the country meeting house on the
banks Of the st. Lawrence, or the Ore
gon, or the Ohio, or the Tombigbee, or
the Alabama. The person who shall
deliver it may this moment be in
cradle under the shadows of the Sierra
Nevadas, or in q New England farm
house, or amid the rice fields of the
southern savannas. Or this moment
there may be some young man in some
of our theological semnaries, in the
junior or middle or senior class, shap-
ing that weapon of power. Or there
may be coming some new baptism of
the Holy Ghost on the churches, so
that some of us who stand in the watch
towers of Zion, waking to realization
of our present inefficiency, may preach
it ourselves. That coming discourse
may not be fifty years off. And let us
pray God that its arrival may be has
tened, while announce to you what [
think will be the chief characteristics
of that discourse or eXhortation when
it does arrive, and 1 want to make the
remarks of the morning appropriate
and suggestive to all classes of Chris
tian workers.
First of all Iremark, that that future
religious discourse will be full of liv-
ing Christ in contradistinction to di-
datic technicalities. A discourse may
be full of Christ though hardly men
tioning His name, and sermon may be
empty of Christ while every sentence
is repetitious of His titles. The world
wants living Christ, not a Christ
standing at the head of formal system
Of theology but a Christ who means
pardon and sympathy, and coincidence,
and brotherhood, and life, and heaven.
A poor mans Christ. A rich mans
Christ. An overworked mans Christ.
An invald's Christ A farmers Christ,
A merchants Christ An artisans
Christ. An every mans Christ.
A symmetrical and fine worded sys-
tenn of theology is well enough for
theological classes, but it has no more
business in a pulpit than have the tech
nical phrases of an anatomist OF psy-
chologist or physician in the sick room
of patient. The world wants help,
Immediate and world uplifting, and it
will come through discourse in which
Christ shall walk right down into the
immortal soul and take everlasting pos
session of it, filling It as full of light as
this MONDAY armament.
That sermon or exhortation of the fu-
ture will not deal with men in the
threadbare illustrations of Jesus Christ.
In that coming address there will be
instances of vicarious suffering taken
right out of everyday life, for there is
not day somebody is not dying for
others. As the physician saving his
diphtheritic patient by sacrificing his
own life; as the ship captain going
down with his vessel, while he is get
ting his passengers into the life-boat; T.;
as the fireman consuming in the burn
ing building while he is taking a child
out of four-story window; as in sum-
mer the strong swimmer at East Hamp-
ton, or Long Branch, OF Cape May, or
Lake George, himself perished trying
to rescue the drowning; as the newspa-
per boy one summer, supporting his
mother for some years, his invalid
mother, when offered by gentleman
so cents to get some especial paper,
and he got it, and rushed up in his anE-
iety to deliver it, and was crushed un-
der the wheels of the train, and lay ON
the grass with only strength enough to
say: ooh, what will become of my
poor sick mother now?"
Vicarious suffering The world is
full of it. An engineer said to me on
locomotive in Dakota: ave men seem
to be coming to better appreciation
than we used to. Did you see that ac-
count the other day of an engineer who
to save his passengers stuck to his
place, and when he was found dead in
the locomotive, which was upside down,
he was found still smiling, his hand on
the air brake?" And as the engineer
said it to me, he put his hand on the
air brake to illustrate his meaning, and
[ looked at him and thought: "You
would be just as much of hero in the
same crisis.
Oh, in that religious discourse Of the
future there will be living illustrations
taken out from everyday life of vicarious
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. that will bring to
mind the ghastlier sacrifice of Him who
in the high places of the field, on the
cross, fought our battles, and wept our
griefs, and endured our struggle, and
died our death.
A German sculptor made an image of
Christ, and he asked his little child, 2
years old, who it was, and she said: